When
it comes to tipping, there's the decent people who do it, and the jerks
who don't. Right? I mean, we all have our own reasons for tipping at
restaurants, but they all pretty much amount to the same thing: It's the
"right" thing to do. But what if it's not? What if it turns out that tipping is (gulp!) unfair?!?

A former restaurant owner says we need to totally rethink tipping.
Bruce McAdams has done just about every job you can do at a restaurant:
He's cooked, waited tables, bussed, managed, and owned them. And after
years of experience, he's concluded that tipping is just plain unfair.
And you know what? His argument makes sense.

If you have time, McAdams' whole TEDx Talk is thought-provoking. But one of the main points he makes is that tipping is unfair to the cooks and everyone else working at a restaurant besides
the servers. When you factor in tips, servers make WAY more than cooks
do. And a lot of those cooks spend years and tens of thousands of
dollars at cooking school. They work just as hard. But they make peanuts
compared to the waiters.

So what -- should we be tipping the cooks, too? McAdams doesn't
really offer solutions for solving this. But he does mention that some
restaurants actually collect the tips and divide them evenly among the
entire restaurant staff. So there's an idea! Would you tip differently if you knew your tips would be shared with the dishwasher?

Eh, probably not. Here's the other thing McAdams says -- study after
study proves that except in extreme cases, we don't tip based on
performance, anyway. Most of us tip based on whatever we usually tip.

So what's the point?!? What if we said "no more tipping!" and just
raised everyone's restaurant bill by 15 to 20 percent? Then the owner
could decide where all the money goes, hopefully fairly -- ugh, if only
restaurant profit margins weren't so teeny. But that's probably never
going to happen. Still, I will ponder this the next time I eat out ...
just before I sign my name under that same tip I give every damn time no
matter what the service was like.

Do you tip? If you do, do you tip based on service or percentage of bill?Do you think tipping is unfair to the rest of the restaurant staff?

Replies

Of course I tip. I live in NY, I would not DARE not to, and these people are paid less than minimum wage. I usually tip 20%(although in NYC they do expect more) if the service was poor, I would tip 15%, but that is rare that I get poor service. I certainly don't think it is unfair. I do believe people that live here probably tip better than other parts of the country? At least that is what I have been told. I find it horrifying that people would actually NOT tip . If I did not have enough money for a tip, I would not go out to eat.

All the places I've worked in the restaurant business the waitress' had to split her tips between herself and the cook.. Sometimes even the person who bused the table.. So maybe that's just where I'm from, so no, it's not unfair...